


Never Let Go

by imunbreakabledude



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/F, Fluff, Humor, Post-Season/Series 03, Soft Villanelle | Oksana Astankova, Sort Of, do not expect any kind of accuracy on the legal front, the rise of Villanelle Jones, the silliness got away from me a bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:41:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24740950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imunbreakabledude/pseuds/imunbreakabledude
Summary: Even when you decide to take on a massive international conspiracy, there's still other business to take care of. Tidying up. Signing divorce papers. Getting closure.It helps to have someone to hold onto.
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 44
Kudos: 278





	Never Let Go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dk_srrybb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dk_srrybb/gifts).



> It was Diana's birthday a few days ago (sorry I am late!!!), and she requested touchy clingy Villanelle. So here's what I whipped up, I hope you like it!

“Since we’re all here,” Jamie says, looking around at the small, ragtag group gathered around the trashed office, all that remains of Bitter Pill, “Let’s get started.”

_Squeak. Squeak. Squeak._

“Right,” Eve says. “Have you discovered anything new in the financial records Kenny left?”

_Squeak. Squeak. Squeak._

“Bear?”

“I’m sorry,” Bear says. “I’m just having a bit of trouble focusing.”

“Why?”

_Squeak–_

Villanelle finally notices that every one of the other four people in the office is staring at her, and stops spinning around in her squeaky swivel chair.

“Better?” Eve asks.

“Still hard to concentrate with a murderer among us,” Bear mumbles.

Jamie takes a sip of his coffee. Audrey looks down at her notepad, suddenly very engrossed in taking notes.

“Sorry?” Bear says. “Should I not have mentioned the penis-chopping elephant in the room?”

“Hey!” Villanelle protests. “I haven’t done that in a really long time. The last one was, I think, the rat?” She looks at Eve expectantly.

“Frank,” Eve supplies.

“How long ago was that? Six months?”

“Eight.”

Villanelle turns to Bear and grins. “Eight months clean.”

“But does she have to be here for all our meetings?”

Eve pauses. Bear makes a valid point; in the two days since Carolyn went off the rails and abandoned the fight against the Twelve, she and the rest of the Bitter Pill team had done their best to pick up and move on, but Villanelle’s constant presence at Eve’s side had been, in the kindest words, a distraction.

She glances over at Villanelle, who is no longer spinning, but squeakily scoots her chair across the carpet until it bumps up against Eve’s chair. She blinks, awaiting Eve’s judgment.

“She’s our best source on the Twelve,” Eve says.

Bear looks for help. “Jamie?”

“She is,” Jamie says, though he sounds exhausted.

Villanelle grabs onto Eve’s arm, then turns to stick her tongue out at Bear.

“If you’re a source, then, go on. Help us out. Give us some information about your bosses. Who was the woman you mentioned? Helene? Don’t suppose you know her last name?”

Villanelle shakes her head.

“Age?”

“Hot.”

Eve buries her face in her hands.

Nevertheless, Bear persists. “You can’t tell us anything more about her, or where we might find her?”

Villanelle tilts her head, thinking. Her eyes wander across the ceiling. Eventually, she says, “She has a weird fixation on medieval crap. Maybe check the Renaissance Faire.”

Audrey begins dutifully scratching away on her notepad, until Bear looks over and slowly shakes his head.

“I think we’d best call it a day,” Jamie says, standing up, gathering the files he was reading off the conference table. He turns towards his office. “Get some rest. See you all tomorrow.”

They take the bus back to Eve’s apartment.

This is the third time they’ve made this commute home, but every single ride, Villanelle gets so giddy she practically vibrates with excitement in the seat next to Eve.

 _It’s just a bus,_ Eve wants to snap at her. But she doesn’t. She remembers, too.

Eve leads the way up to her apartment. Villanelle made her distaste for the tiny space abundantly clear two nights ago, when they stumbled back together, exhausted, from the bridge, but seeing how she’s on the run from the Twelve and can’t access any of her money to find a better place, she had to make do sharing Eve’s twin bed.

They slept next to each other. There wasn’t any other choice but to spoon.

They didn’t do anything else.

“When are you going to clean up around here?” Villanelle says, poking at a crumpled tissue on the windowsill. 

“You have a problem, you can deal with it,” Eve grumbles. “Or move out.”

“Don’t make a threat you aren’t prepared to see through.” Villanelle comes up behind Eve, and wraps her arms around her, resting her chin on Eve’s shoulder. “You couldn’t bear it if I left.”

Eve squirms in Villanelle’s grip and twists around to face her. “Well, I’ve had some bigger things on my mind than cleaning house. We need to keep going after the Twelve before the trail runs cold–”

“Why are you so stuck on that?” Villanelle says.

“We have to take them down.”

“We really don’t.”

So reopens an argument they’ve had in the almost exactly same words about a dozen times over the past three days.

Eve throws up her hands. “If we don’t, then what was this all for?”

“For you to meet me, and your life to improve tenfold?” Villanelle smirks.

“Look at where I live. My life has fallen apart.”

“Do you want Thai food?” Villanelle asks. “I want Thai food. We’re getting Thai food.”

She reaches around Eve’s behind to steal her phone out of her pocket, then, phones up a local restaurant and puts in the order, all while keeping her other arm around Eve.

While they wait for the delivery, Eve tidies up a bit. She refuses to change her entire living philosophy just for Villanelle, but it wouldn’t hurt to throw away some of the garbage, or recycle some of the empty wine bottles. Perhaps she let herself go a little bit more than she would’ve liked, but that’s what happens when one has nothing to live for.

As she picks up some old takeout containers from last night, she uncovers a pile of unopened mail. She’d let it sit because no postage ever seemed as important as taking down an international conspiracy, but she supposes she has to deal with it sometime. A couple catalogs (she’s never signed up for one; how did they find her at this address so quickly?), a bill she has no intention of paying, and a very official looking manila envelope. Eve picks it up. It’s heavy. It’s important.

She opens the envelope to find a packet of papers, swarming with fine print, though one bolded title on the front page makes its purpose clear: _Petition for Dissolution of Marriage._

“Should have seen this one coming,” she mutters.

Villanelle, who moments ago was sitting on the floor flipping through channels on the TV, appears instantly at Eve’s side. “Whoa,” she says, peering over Eve’s shoulder. “Heavy.”

Eve hastily tucks the papers away. “It’s not a big deal.”

“If you say so,” Villanelle says.

“I’m not going to fight him,” Eve says. “It’s past time. I’m gonna do what I need to do, sign the papers and send them back right away.”

“Okay.” Villanelle says. But she grabs at Eve’s hand, and pulls her down to the floor, too. 

The TV goes on in the background, playing some soap opera Eve is embarrassed to admit she’s seen enough episodes of to know most of the characters’ names. They pay little attention to the show as they share one of the many cheap bottles of wine from Eve’s stockpile, and munch on Pad Thai once it arrives.

Villanelle never loses contact with Eve once. Her hands play with Eve’s hair, or trace down the back of her neck. If her hands get distracted by eating, then suddenly she shifts so her knees are pressed up against Eve’s thigh, or leans her whole body into Eve’s, side to side. 

Maybe it’s the wine. Maybe it’s the result of three days of spooning at night and working together in the day. Maybe it’s pure fucking coincidence that Eve and Villanelle look at each other at the same time, and that Villanelle’s eyes flit down to Eve’s mouth.

Eve could lean a few inches forward, repeat the gesture she’s made once before, though under much more stressful circumstances. It would be easy, and it would probably feel quite nice. But there’s a thickness in the air, a greater weight behind the gesture this time around. Everyone who thinks a first kiss is the most significant is an idiot. The second is a million, billion times harder.

So Eve maintains the cushion of space between their lips as she asks, “Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?” 

“Only if you want to,” Villanelle replies.

“Do you?” The question is mostly rhetorical; of course Villanelle wants. As much as she’s plainly wanted Eve from the moment they met, she’s certainly made it clear in the past few days with her relentless physical proximation.

“I want you.”

“You have me.”

Villanelle’s cheeks go pink. “I haven’t _had_ anyone in a long time.”

“What’s ‘long’ for you?”

“The last person I touched like this was… You.”

“Really.”

“But before that, it was…” Villanelle trails off. “I think it must have been my wife.”

“Your _what_ now?”

—

“I’m not asking for anything,” Eve says, patting the stack of papers on the desk. “He can have the house and the chickens too, for all I care. All I need to know is if these papers are legit, and if so, where I have to sign.”

“Yes, this is a ‘legit’ petition for divorce,” the lawyer says. His tie is cheap and his glasses are foggy but he accepts walk-ins, and that’s plenty good enough for Eve. “You are completely sure you don’t want to negotiate these terms, at all?”

“Absolutely.” Eve presses the papers forward. “I want it done as fast as possible.”

“In that case, Mrs. Polastri, you shall soon be a Ms. once again.”

Eve doesn’t bother to laugh at the joke. The lawyer sits in it uncomfortably, then, after a few seconds, adds, “It seems like you are already moving on. Well done.”

He gestures weakly at Villanelle, who pushed her chair so close to Eve’s that she’s as close to being in Eve’s lap as one can be, while in a separate chair. 

“While we are here,” Villanelle says, “Can you help me out with a little divorce, too?”

“That depends,” he says. “What is your situation?”

“Go in your marriage records and look up ‘Villanelle’,” she says. “There can’t be many.”

Eve turns and furrows her brow. “You got married as Villanelle?”

“Who else would I be?”

“I don’t know,” Eve says, then rattles off, “Oksana Astankova. Sylviana Morel. _Eve Polastri_.”

“I was tired,” Villanelle says. “I didn’t feel like coming up with something new.”  
  
The lawyer is clearly a few steps behind, but does his best to catch up, as he asks. “Is there a surname to go with that Villanelle?”

Villanelle’s gaze flicks off to the side as she says. “Jones.”

“Jones?” Eve laughs. “Villanelle _Jones_?”

“You don’t get to talk, Tallulah Shark!” Villanelle snaps.

“I never should’ve told you about that.”

Villanelle turns back to the lawyer. “Go on. Look me up in the system and initiate divorce or whatever.”

“First of all there’s no ‘system’, that’s not how it works; I should have said earlier – but more to the point: are you saying you married your spouse under a false name?”

“Is that bad?”  
  
“It would be if you wanted to stay married.” The lawyer chortles again, then, met with silence, takes off his glasses to clean them on his shirt. “But if your legal name isn’t anywhere on the marriage certificate, then, technically speaking, you aren’t married in the first place.”

“Amazing!” Villanelle crows. “Thank you, you’re very good at the law. I will give you five stars on Yelp.”

They trudge out from the tiny office onto the streets of London, Eve clutching the ‘legit’ papers, and Villanelle clutching Eve.

“This is perfect,” Villanelle croons. “You can mail those papers to Niko, and then we can–”

“No.”

“What do you mean ‘no’? You want to wait for the papers to make it through the post?”

“No, because you still have a wife,” Eve says.

“I’m single. I’m free. The lawyer said so.”

Eve sighs. “Relationships are about more than a name on a piece of paper. You get that, right?”

“Trust me, the piece of paper was the only thing between me and Maria,” Villanelle says. “That, and the joint checking account I got her to open.”

“But you haven’t said anything to her at all? Not even a proper goodbye?” Eve presses. “Does she even know it’s over?”

“We haven't seen each other in months. I think she got the message.”

“You have to do it right,” Eve says. “Face to face.”

“Like you’re one to talk,” Villanelle mumbles.

“I watched my husband get stabbed in the neck with a pitchfork,” Eves says. “Maybe it was too little too late, but we had proper closure after that.”

“Oh, there’s an idea,” Villanelle says. “Let me get a pitchfork.”

Eve lets this slide. “It’s the right thing to do.”

“I hate doing the right thing.”

“We all do. You’re not so special as you think.”

Villanelle pouts. “Fine. But you are coming with me.”

—

Even the door is fancy.

Eve stands on the fancy stoop in front of the fancy door of the fancy gigantic Spanish estate.

“Holy shit,” Eve whispers. “I can’t imagine how much this place is worth.”

“Why do you think I married her?” Villanelle whispers back.

Eve prods Villanelle in the ribs. “Go on.”

“I don’t want to.”

“You kill people for a living, and you’re afraid to see your ex?”

“Used to,” Villanelle corrects her. “And I’m not _afraid_. I just don’t want to.”

“Put your big girl pants on and do it.”

Villanelle presses the doorbell. Thirty seconds later, the gigantic door slowly swings open to reveal a short maid.

“Señora Jones!” the maid exclaims, then nervously adds, “ _Buenos dias_.”

“Is Maria in?” Villanelle asks.

The maid leads them through a downright cavernous foyer, to an enormous parlor where they sit on a velvet lounge. 

Eve looks around at the high ceilings, held up by pale alabaster columns that seem to glow in the sunlight streaming in from the arched windows. A few statues sit on pedestals around the room; a few portraits on the wall. More than what a genuine art lover would keep around: the decor absolutely screams “I have money.”

Finally, the clicking of stilettos on the stone floor signals the arrival of a thin, dark-haired woman in a sharp scarlet blazer and high-waisted pants. The only suitable word to describe the look on her face is _fury_.

“Hi sweetie,” Villanelle says meekly.

“ _Maldita puta!_ ” Maria bellows. “You have the nerve to show your face after you walked out on our wedding day?”

Eve turns to Villanelle. “You did what now?”

Villanelle frowns. “I didn’t plan to. Dasha crashed.”

Maria stalks into the room and stops in front of the couch, staring down at Villanelle with daggers in her eyes. “You lied to me and gave a fake name.”

“It’s not really fake…”

“Your name is Villanelle?” Maria scoffs. “You are a stupid poem that no one even likes!”

Eve has to let out a chuckle at that.

“Shut up!” Villanelle whines. “I picked it myself.”

“That makes perfect sense, because it’s stupid and so are you!” Maria spits.

Villanelle shrinks down into the couch, almost like she’s a turtle trying to retreat into her shell. “You are being really mean right now.”

Maria lets out one single laugh. “That means a lot coming from you. You are some sort of… how you say… a person who doesn’t care about anybody…”

“Psychopath?” Eve offers.

“ _Gracias_ ,” Maria says. “Psychopath!”

“Eve!” Villanelle grips Eve’s arm tighter, winding her fingers into the cloth of Eve’s sleeves

“Wait just a second,” Maria says, pointing a long manicured finger. “This woman right here? This is Eve?”

“Oops.” Villanelle scoots an inch closer on the couch.

“This is whose name you called me while we had sex?”

Eve shoots a sideways glance. “You what?”

“Are you really surprised?” Villanelle hisses back.

“This is the ex you wouldn’t shut up about?” Maria demands. “The one who is supposed to be dead?”

“In my defense, I really thought she was dead,” Villanelle says. “I shot her pretty bad.”

“She did,” Eve admits.

Maria’s fury abates a notch, giving way to confusion. “I thought that old bitch who you left with–“

“Dasha?” Villanelle says. “Ew. No.”

“You and Dasha?” Eve mutters. “You have to admit, it’s not the craziest thought ever.”

“Shut up, Eve!”

“You asked me to come!”

“I’m glad you are here.” Villanelle leans into Eve, halfway onto her lap by now.

“Excuse me,” Maria says, cutting in through the private moment. “Why did you even come?”

“Eve said I had to,” Villanelle groans.

“Go on.” Eve nudges Villanelle – though with Villanelle clinging to her arm so, what was meant as a gentle elbow to her side is more of a shake of her entire body. 

Villanelle loosens her grip slightly, straightens up, and takes a deep breath. “It’s over, Maria.”

“Of course it’s over!” Maria screams. “You psycho, gold-digging piece of shit!”

“Hey!” Eve says defensively, feeling that remark cut a bit too much. “She’s maybe… not a _full-on_ psycho.”

“Oh, thanks a lot, Eve.”

“She has some traits, but jury’s still out.”

“And what is wrong with you?” Maria says, turning to Eve. “She shot you and now you are friends or whatever?”

“We’re more than friends.” The words are out of Eve’s mouth before she can consider the implications, or the setting.

Villanelle turns to Eve, the light of all the stars in the Milky Way in her eyes. She cups Eve’s cheek. She leans in, but–

“Get the fuck out of my house!” Maria screams.

—

Turns out, the old maid is surprisingly strong. She drags the two unwanted guests by their collars, takes them outside, and drops them back on the fancy stoop.

“That is doing the right thing?”

“Yes.”

“I’m glad I never wasted my time with that before.”

—

Villanelle and Eve sit side by side at the airport gate waiting for their flight back to London. Villanelle traces patterns on Eve’s shoulder.

“You know, it was in an airport that I met Maria.”

“Mhm,” Eve mutters, staring down at the travel magazine in her lap.

“Right after I shot you.”

Eve glances up from the magazine. “When you say ‘right after’ you mean…”

“About two hours later.”

Suddenly the article about the top five destinations on a budget is very interesting to Eve.

“Do you regret things, often, Eve?”

“I regret almost everything I do,” Eve mutters without looking up from the glossy photo spread on the page.

“I don’t. Hardly ever,” Villanelle says. Her finger traces over Eve’s shoulder blade, right over her scar. “I don’t regret shooting you.”

“Excuse me?”

“Would we be sitting here right now if I hadn’t?”

Eve pauses. Then admits, “Good point, I guess.”

Villanelle goes quiet, so in the ambient noise of the airport Eve returns to the magazine. It’s hard to focus with Villanelle now drawing designs with her finger on Eve’s thigh.

“I regret getting married,” Villanelle says quietly. “Even if it didn’t count.”

“Don’t we all.”

“You wish you hadn’t married Niko?”

Eve closes the magazine. “Sometimes.”

“Do you think we still would have met?” The tracings on Eve’s leg become more intricate, like Villanelle is trying to draw out that alternate life.

“I don’t know.”

“You wouldn’t be Eve Polastri.”

Eve laughs. “I wouldn’t.”

Villanelle leans her head onto Eve’s shoulder. It’s weird. Eve is usually the leaner, never the lean-ee. She sits still as a statue, trying to slow her breathing so nothing will disturb Villanelle’s comfort with her cheek squished up against Eve’s collarbone.

“I know I would regret it if I gave up on the Twelve at this point,” Eve says. “After all I’ve… all we’ve been through because of them.”

“We found each other.”

“But that’s not enough.” Eve says. Villanelle picks up her head looks at her, hurt for a moment, until Eve adds, “I want to win.”

She puts her hand on Villanelle’s, stopping its mad tracing, interweaves their fingers, and squeezes her hand as she leans in to kiss Villanelle. Kiss her again, the second of hopefully many.

Villanelle pulls back. The way she looks at Eve… there aren’t words. All Eve can say is that she’s never seen that look directed at her before.

“Tallulah Shark and Villanelle Jones,” Villanelle murmurs. 

“Two names to run away from really fast,” Eve chuckles.

“The Twelve won’t know what hit them.” Villanelle smirks, and suddenly the old spark is back; the fire that Eve hasn’t seen in her since Rome, no; since back in her kitchen, that first time they spoke. 

Eve tightens her grip on Villanelle’s hand. She understands, now, why Villanelle has been so physical the past few days. There’s so much past to make up for, and so much danger in the future. But as she holds Villanelle’s hand in hers, in this moment, everything is right. She wants to never let go.

“Does that mean you’re in?” Eve asks. 

“You know I hate to lose,” Villanelle says. “Let’s go win this.”

**Author's Note:**

> 1) I'm sorry if the four words of Spanish are bad
> 
> 2) I know that's not how divorce works; if you get horny for painstakingly detailed and accurate depictions of divorce, do yourself a favor and check out [Quid Pro Quo](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21637660) (or if you just get horny for slow burn villaneve) (who doesn't)
> 
> 3) I'm calling this a oneshot for now, but thoughts are being thunk, so I can't promise I won't turn this into a proper season 4 fic once hiatus hits harder
> 
> anyways, love you all, come chat with me on [tumblr](https://imunbreakabledude.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/not_breakable), I'm still hanging in during the hiatus. Long live Villanelle Jones


End file.
